So, I basically wanted to create a story that delves into the background of The Old Château in D/P. I'd rate this K+ except that I think I might have some bad language later on, therefore I'll stick to a T rating. Comments and concerns are welcome. Enjoy!

-----

Chapter 1

Zach wasn’t particularly strong for his age, and it was one of his worst qualities – he could get up the gumption to work at almost anything except his body. His grades were good, he had a decent amount of creativity, and he had friends.

But he had enemies as well, and at the moment, his enemies were dragging him by his feet from the school in Eterna, and a Fearow had his Mudkip in its sharp talons, hanging by the fins on its head.

“Hey, what did I ever do to you guys, anyways?!” Zach pleaded, trying to spit some of the dirt out of his mouth.

“Well, mainly we needed someone to check out the mansion, and you were the scrawniest around.” said the tallest of the goons. The word “goon” seemed to fit with him – his grin as he walked, the way he dragged Zach over every log and stone on the road, the way some of the adults looked horrified and helpless. Yes, this man was the definition of goon, and –

Suddenly he noticed the goons were taking him out of town, and fear struck through him as he remembered what the head goon had said. “W-w-wait, the m-mansion? B-but – pleagh!” he ate a mouthful of dirt as they flipped him over.

“Yeah, the mansion! Oh, believe me, you and the other zombies will have a great time in there. Oh, and if they ask for brains, just say no, ‘kay?” The goon began to chuckle in a way only demons could.

Zach began to cry as they entered Eterna Forest. Last week, Gardenia, Eterna’s Gym Leader, had come into town from training, insisting he’d seen some shiny thing head into Eterna Forest’s old château – disappearing through the front door. That entire week, everyone was talking, worrying that whatever haunted the house might attack Eterna.

And now he was going to get trapped in that house…

Another mouthful of dirt brought him back to his senses. He looked up as they stopped in front of the humongous tree that blocked the entrance. It’s miraculous ability to grow steered the younger children away from the château. It gave Zach a bout of hope – had the goons not anticipated this boundary? Was he free?

The Fearow momentarily dropped Zach’s Mudkip. It stood in front of the tree for a moment, then let out a caw that echoed through the trees for miles and, and with its right wing, sliced the tree in half.

There went hope.

Fearow plucked Mudkip up off the ground again, and Zach was dragged over the stump and onwards. He looked up…

And there it was. The château had been a legend in the Eterna region since before Zach was born. It was said that a man and his wife and daughter once lived there. The family, while rather isolated at first, tried their best to communicate with others in Eterna. Then one foggy night, a thunderstorm raged over the château. It was said (only through rumor, of course) that the daughter had gone outside for some unknown reason and a tree had fallen on her, breaking her neck. By the time the old couple got outside, their daughter had passed away. Later that night, the man reportedly went insane of rage and sadness, and killed himself and his wife.

And now it seemed Zach would be the next of the château’s victims.

“Any last words?” the goon said mockingly as he opened the front door. As Zach stammered for something to say, the shorter goon dropped his leg and picked him up from the other side. Then the two threw him through the door, and the Fearow did the same with his Mudkip. Zach quickly got up and ran for the exit, but the door slammed shut and a lock clicked in place on the other side.

“PLEEEASE!!! I’LL DO ANYTHING!!! HEEELP!!!” he shouted as he hammered on the unmoving door, only receiving laughter from the other side as the goons ran off. When their footsteps faded completely, he turned to the ominous staircases and doors in front of him, the wood rotting away everywhere.

“Somebody…help?”

_________________

Daco wrote:

I swear, if one of those guys said "the cake is a lie" one more time, all of their a$$e$ woulda been mine.

'Das my brother. >=]

Last edited by Zapheres on Mon May 26, 2008 8:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Sun May 25, 2008 11:36 pm

Zapheres

Pokemon Trainer

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 9:52 pmPosts: 46Location: Where the Wild Things Are

Gardenia sat at her desk, trying her best to draw what she’d seen that day in the forest. It had been bugging her all week, and her pupils were nagging her constantly about it. A week ago, when she’d seen it, it was only a ball of light. But the more she tried to remember it, the more distinct it became she now remembered something orange and blue, shining brightly in the middle of the light. And now there was some sort of face…

A nibbling on her arm woke her from thought. she looked down to see her Turtwig looking up at her, her arm in its small mouth, its eyes sad and cute.

She laughed quietly and patted the twig on its back. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get you some grub.” She got up and pulled a sack of berries out from under her desk. She cupped some out with her hands and splayed them out across the table. “There ‘ya go, that should last you for a-”

She jumped as the doorbell went off behind her. She circled around and glared at the speaker. The gyms had it set up so that whenever anyone entered, the dumb alarm would sound once in case you were daydreaming. She grumbled and grabbed a poke ball out of her pocket. “Come on, you can eat when we get back.”

“Turtwig…” the creature whimpered, then hopped down to the floor. It closed it eyes as she thrusted the ball out. Turtwig was zapped up into it, and Gardenia headed out into the main gym area.

She closed her bedroom door and covered it up with the cloud wallpaper which made up the walls of her gym. It was fun to make the younger trainers believe that gym leaders stood at the pedestal 24 hours a day. She heard a scampering of feet echo across the gym as her pupils took their places, and she walked to the front door to give her speech.

And Rickshaw, the bike salesman, ran into the arena, almost crashing into her.

“Gar…(pant) Gardenia, I…(heave)”

“It’s okay, sit down. Jeez, do you ride on the bikes you sell at all?” She took him by the shoulders and sat him down on a tree. “It’s okay people, false alarm, just Rickshaw!” She heard her pupil heave a sigh of disappointment and they began to talk to each other as they went back to the pupil dormitories, also hidden behind wallpaper.

“Gardenia, Zach, he…(pant) I saw him get carried away by some bad looking kids towards the forest, and…(pant) I think they went to the château…(wheeze)”

Gardenia’s eyes turned serious. She told people to stay away from the château, but it seemed kids would be as much trouble as she thought. “Thanks, Rick, I’ll get ‘em.” She sprinted out of the gym and towards the forest.

If the kids angered whatever went in that house, something terrible might befall Eterna, and Gardenia wasn’t about to find out what without a fight. And if anything happened to Zach…

Gardenia slammed into two kids coming out of the forest. She got up and swept the dirt off herself. “Sorry, sorry, I’m in a hurry, and–” She gave the kids a long stare. These two looked the type for bullies in general. “You two wouldn’t have just been to the château, would you?” She glared into their faces as sternly as possible.

“Yeah, so what if we have?” said the taller one in as supercilious a voice as he could get and glared right back at Gardenia.

“What did you do with Zach?” she said, rage growing in her eyes.

“Why don’t you go find out?” he said as he turned and ran, the other boy following.

“Roserade!” she shouted as she threw her rightmost poke ball toward the boys. Her Roserade burst out in a flash of light and Gardenia caught the ball as it flew back to her. “Use Grass Knot on those two!”

“Roserade!” the creature shouted as it dug it flowered into the ground. Suddenly vines grew up around the boys’ feet and they fell to the ground. Vines continued to grow tightly until it covered their bodies up to their heads.

“Is he in the château?” she asked.

“Yeah, but we were only messing with him honest! Please don’t hurt us!” the younger boy pleaded. The older one glared at him.

“You two can wait here until I get back.” she said, zapping Roserade back into its ball and taking off towards the château once again.

_________________

Daco wrote:

I swear, if one of those guys said "the cake is a lie" one more time, all of their a$$e$ woulda been mine.

'Das my brother. >=]

Last edited by Zapheres on Mon May 26, 2008 8:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mon May 26, 2008 1:14 pm

Zapheres

Pokemon Trainer

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 9:52 pmPosts: 46Location: Where the Wild Things Are

“Hey, don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Let’s just calm down and try to look for a – AGH!!!” A Gastly floated before him and let out a roar. “M-M-Mudkip, W-Water Gun!”
Mudkip sent a solid blast of water at the Gastly and it dropped down to the floor.

He tried to calm down and think. The ghost wasn’t yet finished and he was taught to do something at that point, but he couldn’t think of what. He fished around in his pockets as best he could with shivering hands and took out a poke ball. He threw it at the Gastly and it zapped inside.

His face lit up. He’d never caught a pokemon before, and he’d had Mudkip since before he could remember. He’d only learned to catch pokemon in theory from Gardenia. This was the first time he’d actually tried it. He went to pick it up…

And the ball shook once. He jumped back. Had he done something wrong? The ball shook again. Was the Gastly angry or something? The ball shook again then froze. He waited for a minute then tried to pick it up again. He jumped back, expecting something to happen, and when nothing did, he picked it up and stuffed it in his pocket.

His first catch happened in a pretty freaky place, he thought.

He waved for Mudkip to follow and began to explore. The château was in major decay. The floorboards creaked as he walked across them, and several times he heard clattering as he disturbed something’s home by accident. He decided to explore the upstairs first and come back to the first floor if all else failed, because the statue out in front of the only room there looked like it might come alive if he passed by it. So he headed up.

On the upstairs were rooms on either side, which were both empty except for some boxes and pokemon books that weren’t very interesting, and certainly weren’t ways out. There was one more door in the upstairs exactly opposite the front. Seeing as it was the last of which wouldn’t eat him, he walked on through.

A hallway ran perpendicular to the doorway, and he could see five doors which looked exactly the same. He was about to go through the middle one in front of him when he noticed something strange.

There was some sort of glowing residue running from the entrance to the second door.

His first thought was that it would be the most haunted room, but then it was also possible that whatever went in was going there for the exit. After a minute of deliberation, he figured that if he could catch a Gastly, he could defeat whatever was in that room.

The first thing he noticed upon entering was the television. The plug was out and the antenna mangled and rusted, but it was still flashing with something. He stared hard into it and saw something in the center. As it came into view it was blue and orange and had a silly smile. He chuckled, which must have startled the thing, because the next thing he knew the blue glow around it lashed out at him.

He flew back into the hallway and bashed his head against the wall. He laid back for a moment gripping his head in both hands. Mudkip ran up to him and cried “Mudkip!”
“It’s okay, I – Mudkip!” Something seemed to be grabbing its tailfin. He tried to get up and suddenly fell back to the floor. It felt as if his brain had liquefied and was beginning to pour out his ears, and suddenly it all snapped back into place. He got up and looked around.

The room had changed.

Everything was different. All the rotting had vanished, and he was in his bed at home. His mom walked in. “Are you okay dear? Oh, we were worried sick about you! Never wander off like that again, you hear?”

He looked at her with surprise. “Wh-what happened?”

She smiled. “Someone found you and Muddy unconscious in that old house. What were you doing in there, anyhow?” she said worriedly.

“Some…some kids at school dragged me over there, guess they wanted me to explore…” he held his head again. It seemed his head hadn’t healed since the accident. “Is Mudkip okay?!” The memory it something dragging him away came back. If anything happened to him…

“He’s fine, we found him right by your side”

Zach sighed in relief.

“Well, it’s okay now. You want to watch some TV?”

“Yeah, I’d like that” he said, smiling.

“Okay, come to the living room and I’ll get some Pecha tea for you.”

She shuffled out and into their living room/kitchen. He got up and headed the same direction, holding his head. His mother was abnormally nice today. Generally she would have lectured him and warned him to be more careful next time.

The living room was exactly as he remembered it, every speck of dirt the same. He flopped down on the couch as his mom brought in the tea.

“Well, here you are. Drink up, you’ll feel better.” He was about to pick up the tea when a smell wafted under his nose. He looked around again and noticed the room was a bit darker than when he’d entered. The wood was no longer the bright orange he knew, it seemed a darker tinge somehow.

His headache swung by again, and he had to clench his head of the pain

“Oh, dear, drink it please! It works miracles, believe me.”

“Fine, mom.” He picked up and drank the tea. The room brightened with its normal homely glow and his headache faded to a simple bit of throb.

“Dear, lie down, you seem exhausted.” She was right, of course. As he lay down, his eyes shut almost against his will and he fell into a deep sleep.

-----

The girl chuckled as the boy fell asleep. Finally her loneliness would be gone. Zach would be keeping her company now.

Whether he wanted to or not.

_________________

Daco wrote:

I swear, if one of those guys said "the cake is a lie" one more time, all of their a$$e$ woulda been mine.

Wow this is very good stuff! You know your pace, and know when to say each thing, and know how to keep me intrigued. I can't say its perfect, but I'll just wait for the next chapter, see if it changes my mind.

9/10

_________________

Click me! Tall grass txtrpg!

Tue May 27, 2008 6:51 pm

Zapheres

Pokemon Trainer

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 9:52 pmPosts: 46Location: Where the Wild Things Are

(Sorry for the wait, finals were this week. Fortunately, I've got three months off now, so I'll try to write a lot more. )

Chapter 4

Gardenia stepped up to the double doors and took off the wooden board, which barred them closed. As she stepped in, she wondered briefly why the door locked from the outside, but the thought quickly leapt from her mind as the house’s spookiness took over. What particularly caught her attention was the statue in front. It seemed to be staring at her…and it wouldn’t hurt to check if it in fact was.

Keeping an eye on the “statue,” she sent out her Cherubi. The creature waddled up to Gardenia and let out a questioning “Cheru?”

Gardenia smiled. Cherubi was her first pokemon, and it still brought joy to her heart to see it. “Cherubi, Magical Leaf that statue!”

“Cherubiii!” the creature focused hard, then jumped in the air and spun, sending the leaves on its head towards the statue, just and a Haunter leapt out.

“Haunter!” the thing cried as it zoomed away, dispersing to nothing along the way.

“Watch out Cherubi, it’ll show up again when we least expect it, so keep those leaves handy…” Cherubi took on an uncomfortable look as its leaves quickly grew back.

The pair continued into the dining room. The long table and stained cloth went perfectly with ceiling – which was dripping something – and the see-through figure of an old, handsome man which was looking directly at Gardenia with a stern look, as well as –

Gardenia’s train of thought tripped on a penny and turned over, skidding right into her eyes.

“What exactly are you doing here?” The ghost said as sternly as possible.

“W-We’re looking for someone. He c-came in a-”

“You’re alive? You’re alive, aren’t you! Amazing!” the ghost floated through the table towards them and they jumped back in fright. “Oh, I’m sorry, I mean no harm, I swear to it. But please tell me, is the Haunter gone?”

Gardenia tried to snap out of her surprise. Ghosts should in no way scare her – after all, she’d dealt with enough ghost-using trainers. “The Haunter’s gone, yes, but only for the moment – it ran.”

A horrified look came over the ghost. “No, you must defeat it, please! I’ve been trapped here for at lease thirty years because of that thing. If it gets you, it’ll be even – WATCH OUT!”

Gardenia looked towards where the ghost was looking just in time to see Cherubi get a good lick from the newly appeared Haunter. “NO! Cherubi!” she said as its eyes closed and it fell to the ground. She quickly zapped it into its ball and rolled to the side as the Haunter went for her as well.

The ghost yelled to her “Find a way to drain its power! It’s been around for too long to be had by anything else!”

And so she had the idea. She threw the ball that contained Roserade away from Haunter, which was once again going for her. She dove out of the way, but not before the creature’s tongue wrapped around her leg. The thing stuck like paste and she was lifted into the air as the thing tried to wrap her completely. “Roserade, Mega Drain this monstrosity!”

Roserade seemed to concentrate as both of its bouquets opened towards the Haunter, whose eyes widened as it slowly came apart and was sucked into the open flowers.

As the last pieces came apart, Gardenia fell to the ground. She scrambled to stand up and immediately fell back down. Her leg was completely numbed.

The ghostly man floated up to her and spoke. “Are you okay? Please, rest. You and your Roserade are extraordinary, to defeat such a thing so easily. It stole the life force from your leg though, and your body will try to compensate. Most likely you’ll pass out – don’t worry though, you’re not dead yet.”

“Yet?” she questioned the old man as her entire body fell slightly numb. When her head did the same, she fainted.

_________________

Daco wrote:

I swear, if one of those guys said "the cake is a lie" one more time, all of their a$$e$ woulda been mine.

This story is pretty good, it's gripping and the plot steadily develops.
What I would criticize on is the generic bully and main character, try to make hem more interesting.
9/10. Definitely worth reading.

I thought this story had been getting a lot of hype..but it was just you posting more chapters. But still, your only two comments are obviously from people who haven't read a good story in a while. This story ain't so hot, and I didn't want to read it after the first few paragraphs (even though I had to).

Now, I will make you cry with a long-winded, brutal review.

and. and and and and and and and. there are a disturbing amount of ands. pretty much every single one of them is unnecessary. i'll take the liberty of counting how many ands, just to show you.
there are 29 ands in the first chapter.
52 ands in the second.
81 ands in the third.
19 ands in the last.
there's even a larger amount of thes, but ands bother me the most. instead of using and all the time, try using semicolons and commas. just drop the. you can replace it with 'a', but in a lot of cases, just the noun is acceptable. if you can't avoid using the, add descriptive words before the noun. such as...
'eerie, ancient statues loomed over her,' instead of 'the statues in the room glared at her.'

paragraph size is bad. every other paragraph looks to be about three sentences long, and the ones inbetween look as if they are one-liners. you should never be happy with a piece of writing unless the paragraphs are ginormous. there's also a fair amount of fragments, which would be good for expanding the paragraph size if you added more detail. dialogue paragraphs are the only exception, but they should still be at least two to three sentences long.

(pant): no. there are no parenthesis in a proper piece, unless it is absolutely necessary, or if it is written in first-person. completely drop the sound effects. leave just the periods to denote struggle speaking. this isn't a pokemon game, it's writing.

and one last thing..
gardenia isn't the same length/height as a haunter's tongue. it cannot engulf her completely - plus, its tongue wrapped around her leg gives a disturbing image..definitely not something for children.

I must admit that this is pretty good. And that means a lot, considering that I rarely read Pokemon fanfiction. (Most of it is based around the anime which = FAIL) I agree with Kasey and Shiny, but a few other things:

.semi colons or commas are a good thing (Like Kasey said) but starting a whole new sentence is okay in some situations. Here's an example:

Quote:

He jumped back, expecting something to happen, and when nothing did, he picked it up and stuffed it in his pocket.

This is OK, but this is better:

Quote:

He jumped back, expecting something to happen. When nothing did, he picked it up and quickly stuffed it in his pocket.

.Also, I see a bit of a disuse of adverbs. Even though you seem to use many descriptive verbs, adverbs are a great way to make your writing seem more realistic and detailed.

If I find any more major glitches that haven't already been mentioned, I'll edit this post. I can't wait for the next chapter!

_________________Awesome Siggy: SpongedudeFantastic Avie: froggy_00 If I owe/ said I would donate you psybucks, please PM me ASAP (preferably a link to the page that I "bought" the item) and I will try to round them up as quickly as possible (of course, after the cash mod is fully functional). Thanks.

Sun Jun 01, 2008 4:29 pm

Zapheres

Pokemon Trainer

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 9:52 pmPosts: 46Location: Where the Wild Things Are

Thanks for all the criticism, peoples, I'm glad my story got some. At the moment though, I think I'll suspend writing any more until I've become more experienced. I'll still write on here, but I think I'll just do some one-shot short stories before I continue with this - if I'm gonna write a full-fledged story, I'd like it to be really good. So yeah, not sure when I'll continue with this, but stay tuned for some shorties.

And I only realized the implications of Haunter's tongue + Gardenia's leg afterwards... not sure what I'ma do about that one...

(And, Crystal, I was actually just basing it around the game. I agree, the anime = pure failure.)

_________________

Daco wrote:

I swear, if one of those guys said "the cake is a lie" one more time, all of their a$$e$ woulda been mine.

Well, the one thing I like about the anime, which you did unknowingly, is the attacks. It's not just "Roserade uses Mega Drain!"
"Its attack missed!"
"Wild Haunter used Lick!"

You are more descriptive, which is good. Because the attacks don't always seem so generic. And, as in the case of unlucky people like me, we haven't even used the attacks on DP, so we don't know what they look like.

It's a good story, and it's coming along quite nicely. The only thing I would have to say is watch ands, and use some adverbs. (Adverbs are great, but overuse kills them...) And this sentence works just as well as (pant).

Quote:

"Gar...Gardenia, I-" he panted.

Sometimes the words describe themselves, but times like these you have to clarify...

Hopefully this helps!

AEPMT

_________________It's great to complete a Pokedex! So I'll need some help...

If you want to get better at writing in general, please visit my site!

i never want to see another ''and'' in my life. i'm glad someone wrote a story about the old chataeu though, i was waiting. (looking too). you'll get better with exp. don't worry. 4/10 because you have room to improve (if you are perfect the first time then you can't improve)

_________________A flea and fly in a flue, Were imprisoned so what could they do? Said the flea let us fly. Said the fly let us flee. So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

rocky horror? that was a good show (and I'm secure enough in my masculinity to say so) do they still do the live active theater where you throw hot dogs, bring newspaper and the people drown you in water? that was fun last time. i was ten last time though. although i still think that that one chick with the high voice and tap shoes was hot. anyways good luck

_________________A flea and fly in a flue, Were imprisoned so what could they do? Said the flea let us fly. Said the fly let us flee. So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

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